Release 5 of Maple V Available on RCS

Release 5, the most recent version of the Maple V symbolic math package, is now available on the RCS system.

The newest version includes the following changes from the previous version:

• The percent character (%) has replaced the double quote character (") to recall previous results. The double quote character is now used for the new string type. (A string, defined as a sequence of characters that cannot be assigned and will always evaluate to itself, is written by enclosing the sequence of characters within a pair of double quotes (e.g., "This is a string.").)

• Maple V Release 5 cannot read the Maple V Release 4 *.m files. Use the Maple V Release 5 updtsrc utility to convert Release 4 source code to Release 5.

• Maple V Release 5 has three palettes you may use to simplify entering mathematical expressions. To use the palettes, pull down the View menu at the top of the Maple window, select the Palettes option, click on the symbol, expression, or matrix form you want to use, and then fill in any placeholders.

  For example, to enter an integral, click on the integral form in the expression palette; the appropriate Maple code with "%?" placeholders will appear in the worksheet window. Simply replace the placeholders with the desired function and the integration limits, using the tab key to move among the placeholders.

• The DEtools package (differential equations) has been significantly enhanced.

• The new PDEtools package provides commands for finding analytical solutions to partial differential equations.

• The geom3d package provides facilities for working with 3-dimensional objects and algorithms.

• The new Matlab link allows you to open a connection to Matlab, do computations using Matlab functions, and return the results to Maple.

• The algcurves package (algebraic curves) provides support for one-dimensional curves defined by multivariate polynomials.

For a complete list of changes, pull down the Help menu, then select the What's New item. This section explains the new features in Maple V Release 5; left-click on an underlined item for more details. This section also discusses Maple V Release 4 and Maple V Release 5 compatability issues.

To access the latest version of Maple V, issue the following commands from a UNIX window:

   	setup maple-new
   	maple &

Alternately, you may select the Maple: Symbolic Math Package option from the RCS Applications menu once you have set up maple-new.

Release 5 of Maple V will become the default on Tuesday, June 30, and you will no longer have to set it up. You will still be able to access the current version of Maple, Release 4, until Thursday, July 30, by entering the command setup maple-old from a UNIX prompt before running the program.

If you have any questions or problems with Maple, contact Mark Miller at 276-2751, or direct electronic mail to millem@rpi.edu.